In our time using the new OnePlus One smartphone, we tried our best to ignore its cost. We wanted to focus on its remarkable traits—its quality 5.5-inch screen, magnificent battery life, Cyanogenmod functionality, quad-core processor, 13MP backward-facing camera, unnecessarily nice front-facing camera, handsome design—and judge them in a vacuum. "Focus solely on how it stacked up to the best-selling modern Android sets"—that was our mantra.

But it's hard to ignore the magical, mystical fact that we actually had a OnePlus One in hand. Months after the phone’s public reveal, and at the beginnings of its odd, invite-only shopping process, the notoriously hard-to-buy phone arrived. And once the price came up, all bias was completely overtaken: $300 for the 16GB model, $350 for 64GB, completely unlocked, no contract necessary.

Google and LG's Nexus 5 is the only other smartphone that comes close to matching OnePlus’ smartphone-to-price ratio, and OnePlus is hitting this price without the benefit of Google's deep pockets. It’s tempting to pin that detail as the headline of any review. Yet the truly remarkable “how’d they do that” part of this phone isn’t its cost, but its quality.

Plugged into the OnePlus wall outlet (which does not come with the One by default).

The SIM key comes in a red, plastic holder ready for keychains. In case you pull SIM cards out on the go, we figure.

We received the higher-memory (64 GB) OnePlus One model, and it was packed in a “rip here, pull here, open here” multi-part box, the kind designed to excite YouTube’s most prolific unboxing artists. We found the phone packed next to a tangle-proof, extra-thick USB cord—we like its bold, red design, but it’s too short for our liking—and a keychain-friendly poking tool for opening the SIM tray. OnePlus sells its wall plug separately.

The seven-band LTE modem and transceiver supports GSM carriers; in the States, that means AT&T and T-Mobile, so we inserted a pay-as-you-go T-Mobile micro-SIM card to take this phone on the go right after getting a feel for the hardware.

Side by side with the Nexus 5 (the author didn't have a Galaxy Note handy for a better comparison).

Micro-USB port and stereo speakers on the bottom.

Headphone port on the top.

As for the hardware, be warned: the word “phablet” absolutely applies. At 5.71 ounces, the phone feels appropriately hefty for something that measures 6.02 by 2.99 by 0.35 inches—for the record, that’s the tiniest bit taller and thicker than a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, but it's lighter by 0.22 ounces. The One’s 1080p screen measures 5.5 inches (401 PPI), which isn't far from the Galaxy Note 3’s 5.7-inch display. The screen is raised just above a silver-plastic edge and surrounded by a bezel on the left and right sides that’s about the same width as the Nexus 5’s—not as tight as the Galaxy S4, but not substantial.

Enlarge/ A OnePlus One and Nexus 5 set to maximum brightness in direct sunlight.

The display uses an IPS display panel, which we found to be reasonably visible outdoors in direct sunlight. The screen is coated in Gorilla Glass 3, and its stretch to 5.5 inches hasn’t come with any apparent compromise in color reproduction or brightness. You won’t find a hard home button on the front or software buttons on the screen; instead, a set of old-era capacitive touch buttons—menu, home, and back, in that order—sit beneath the screen, and they’re decidedly dim when they light up.

Using a phone this big required getting into a habit we weren’t comfortable with: shuffling the phone up and down our palm in order to reach every part of the screen in normal use. My large hand is perfectly suited for one-handed use of the smaller Nexus 5, but trying to pick contacts, tap on-screen option sliders, type, hit send, then select an under-screen menu button proved impossible without shuffling my hand as if I was holding a playing card.

It’s a recipe for phone-dropping disaster, and the only remedy we found was disabling the capacitive buttons in favor of on-screen buttons a la the Nexus 5. It sucks to waste any of the giant screen real estate on buttons that the device already has, but it shrunk our usable area just enough to make single-handed use a viable option.

The phone’s volume and power buttons, on the left and right side, are placed a little lower than we would’ve liked, presumably because OnePlus expects users to hold the phone at its central point as opposed to its top. The case is rounded out with a handsome, textured plastic backing that stuck to our hands and felt very comfortable. We tried to scratch the back with table edges and fingernails, and it didn’t show any marks, which was nice.

Sam Machkovech

The logo on the back of the OnePlus One is of the number one, NOT the letter "i" for "invite-only." That becomes even truer next week when the device finally opens up to a wider pre-order pool.

Sam Machkovech

The logo on the back of the OnePlus One is of the number one, NOT the letter "i" for "invite-only." That becomes even truer next week when the device finally opens up to a wider pre-order pool.

...but it's not as easily removable as plans for swappable back covers may lead you to believe.

OnePlus has announced a range of replaceable “StyleSwap” back covers, including wooden and denim designs, but taking the default cover off is nigh impossible. We’ve seen other users do so by removing the SIM card and then yanking, but we couldn’t make it happen using our fingers. We’d need a prying tool of some sort to snap the default cover out of place.

In day-to-day use, the phone felt incredibly snappy, but beyond the subjective feeling of apps loading and switching quickly—and a killer antenna that kept us connected to T-Mobile's network in some of our worst connectivity spots—we were most impressed by how well the One handled facial recognition to unlock the phone. It seemed like a good way to test both the phone’s power and its whopping 5-megapixel front-facing camera. That combo rarely needed more than a half-second to load the camera, see our face, and let us into the phone.

I remain convinced that if they could do a 4" version of this product (and not downgrade every component to the point that it's just a mid-tier device - *cough*Samsung*cough*HTC) then they could be onto a second winner...

For those who don't know about Oppo, they make some good quality stuff. I see them for sale in many chain stores and independent vendors where I live in Thailand. While my Nexus 5 was being replaced under my bone head proof warranty, I was given an N1 to use. I really liked it. I have also played around with some of their cheaper phones, and found them to be very well built and of good quality for the money. If they can break into the US market, they would give people another good choice for an Android phone. (I have not been back to the States for 6 years, so if they are already there, good!)

I wonder if any of the One's replaceable covers will support Qi? After using a Nexus 5 for a few months now, it's hard to imagine going back to a phone without wireless charging - I can't even remember the last time I actually plugged in my Nexus 5. Funny how a relatively minor convenience becomes so important in a world where most smartphones are pretty great.

I really wish phones came with a choice of 2 battery sizes: standard, and big honking. Standard should last all day, but be reasonably small and convenient to carry. Big honking should be unreasonably large and last for 4-5 days without a charge. I would buy the second version, but I understand others don't want to carry a brick. For me, battery life is all important, and I only buy phones with ZeroLemon battery option. The OnePlus One phone may last 1.5 days, but that's still not good enough for me. Some days I forget to plug the phone in overnight, and I like that the battery can be forget-to-charge proof.

I gather OnePlus is the name of the manufacturer? I read and read and saw no mention of who makes the phone until the bottom quarter of the third page where it says OnePlus may be a subsidiary of another company I've never heard of Oppo.

Seriously? You are reviewing a phone without knowing who makes it? Do you know if they have other models? You say it is hard to buy, but don't say how? Where did you get your review unit from? I'm ruling out an April Fools joke, but really, from another source, the whole thing could be made up from whole cloth. It certainly sounds like vapor ware and means I have little interest in the details of your review.

I gather OnePlus is the name of the manufacturer? I read and read and saw no mention of who makes the phone until the bottom quarter of the third page where it says OnePlus may be a subsidiary of another company I've never heard of Oppo.

Seriously? You are reviewing a phone without knowing who makes it? Do you know if they have other models? You say it is hard to buy, but don't say how? Where did you get your review unit from? I'm ruling out an April Fools joke, but really, from another source, the whole thing could be made up from whole cloth. It certainly sounds like vapor ware and means I have little interest in the details of your review.

What amazes me the most is that you took time to read the whole review and you didn't know about OnePlus and the One so far. After all the hype, really?And yes, it's the only device they're making at the moment. And the first one too, as mentioned in the article.

My favorite part if this phone is the cord. All cords should be this flat and wide.

Unfortunately I had the opposite exerience. The flat USB cord is the one that broke the fastest. May be is was just bad luck from my part. I suppose that you have had a reliable and durable flat USB cord?

What's up with that "One" word? Everything is named One now. HTC One, OneDrive, One+One, etc. It is totally frustrating for people like me who is able to count up to TWO.

"This is not just a phone: it's the ONE! "

That what HTC thought I suppose. Until another ONE came out. It is so "One" that it needs two ONEs to compose the model name. May be I should trade mark "One+One+One" right now to monetize it later with a future manufacturer.

It's not a perfect phone, but for it's price point, its probably the best with only the Nexus giving it competition. Snapdragon 801, high res screen, decent battery life, and a good radio. Plus it supports many bands. Hmm ... probably one of the best deals around. I guess there are a few of the other manufacturers like Oppo offering decent deals.

I would have liked a louder speaker, a removable battery, and an SD card though (for switching FLAC files between phones easily). I guess it's one of those things where for the money, it's not viable.

Lets hope that phones like this starting putting pressure on the likes of Apple, Samsung, et al to lower their flagship prices. They are overpriced as is.

Edit:Finally, the fact that it ships with Cyanogenmod and not some crappy manufacturer UI is probably a huge boon.

Text updated to clarify a sentence about speaker volume (external vs ear). The external speaker can be quite loud—so loud, in fact, that we could listen to music and podcasts via speaker while driving down the highway. (If you must know, we rocked the new Sia LP, 1,000 Forms of Fear, on repeat for a few days.)

Well, yeah, I do. It's hard to believe that you are interested in phone reviews and "read arstechnica daily", and yet missed all the news about the OnePlus One. Because, you know, it has been "big news" for quite some time.

I really wish phones came with a choice of 2 battery sizes: standard, and big honking. Standard should last all day, but be reasonably small and convenient to carry. Big honking should be unreasonably large and last for 4-5 days without a charge. I would buy the second version, but I understand others don't want to carry a brick. For me, battery life is all important, and I only buy phones with ZeroLemon battery option. The OnePlus One phone may last 1.5 days, but that's still not good enough for me. Some days I forget to plug the phone in overnight, and I like that the battery can be forget-to-charge proof.

+1. I can't go back to lower capacity batteries. I've been due for an upgrade for a bit now but there's currently no phone I'm interested in with a ZeroLemon option. I have a feeling I'm gonna be holding on to my Note 2 for a while longer.

I gather OnePlus is the name of the manufacturer? I read and read and saw no mention of who makes the phone until the bottom quarter of the third page where it says OnePlus may be a subsidiary of another company I've never heard of Oppo.

Seriously? You are reviewing a phone without knowing who makes it? Do you know if they have other models? You say it is hard to buy, but don't say how? Where did you get your review unit from? I'm ruling out an April Fools joke, but really, from another source, the whole thing could be made up from whole cloth. It certainly sounds like vapor ware and means I have little interest in the details of your review.

What amazes me the most is that you took time to read the whole review and you didn't know about OnePlus and the One so far. After all the hype, really?And yes, it's the only device they're making at the moment. And the first one too, as mentioned in the article.

I skimmed the entire article primarily because I was curious, even just from the title, who the heck manufactured it. I was expecting HTC based on the name, and if it was, I would have read about actual review details such as the camera with more interest. I even clicked on the unboxing pictures to get my first clue that the manufacturer really was called OnePlus.

Well done journalism sets up the story in the first couple of paragraphs, and with such an obscure manufacturer, the manufacturer certainly deserved a few words on the first page, not at the bottom of the last page. Most reviews tell you where the unit came from, compare it to other products from the same manufacturer (comments here say that Oppo indeed has other phones), and how to purchase it.

I read arstechnica daily and enjoy most phone reviews. This one was frustrating because of a lack of basic info. It made the assumption that OnePlus One has been big news for sometime, so readers did not need basic info. Maybe news about it has been posted frequently before, but as someone who probably spends close to an hour reading Ars many excellent articles, I missed this big news completely.

Yup, blame the reader (to paraphrase sociology 101).

Every single one of your questions was answered in the article, with extra information available via links embedded in the article. Maybe you should READ the article instead of just "skimming" it before posting comments.

This is probably going to be buried now but I'm seeing the oneplus forums and people are complaining about a yellow tint on their phones. Oppo is telling those who want to a replacement this is due to software tuning and state that this will be their one time replacement.

If it is software driven then their should be a fix provided. If it is truly hardware driven and the company is making the consumers use up their warranty replacement on a faulty delivered product this stinks. I had joined wanting to get a smartphone (still a dumb phone hold out). This is not the phone I'm looking for if these allegations by customers are to be believed.

I really wish phones came with a choice of 2 battery sizes: standard, and big honking. Standard should last all day, but be reasonably small and convenient to carry. Big honking should be unreasonably large and last for 4-5 days without a charge. I would buy the second version, but I understand others don't want to carry a brick. For me, battery life is all important, and I only buy phones with ZeroLemon battery option. The OnePlus One phone may last 1.5 days, but that's still not good enough for me. Some days I forget to plug the phone in overnight, and I like that the battery can be forget-to-charge proof.

Why not just program your phone to remind you to plug it in every day.

I would like to point out a blog post on the CyanogenMod blog said that:

Quote:

Google did a two-for-one this month, and released Android 4.4.4 to address some OpenSSL items this week. CM actually already included these OpenSSL patches right around the time we did the 4.4.3, so 4.4.4 brought little more than a simple version number change.

Also, the same blog post said that CyanogenMod was based off 4.4.3 since June 6th; and it included 7000+ changes. Plus, they just released a stable build of CyanogenMod not to many days ago (CyanogenMod 11 M8).